Meet the four anti-lumad, pro-mining corporations military generals

Group says US should cut military aid to PH, citing rise of 4 generals despite rights abuses
By Tricia Aquino
June 26, 2015
InterAksyon.com

MANILA, Philippines -- In March last year, members of the Manobo tribe in Davao del Norte were reportedly threatened and interrogated by troops of the 60th Infantry Battalion and 4th Special Forces of the Army’s 10th Infantry Division, who also destroyed their rice fields and stole their chickens.

Later that month, aerial bombing sent more than 300 tribal families fleeing their community to seek refuge in Davao City.

Human rights groups believe the Manobos’ resistance to large-scale mining operations in their ancestral lands triggered the militarization, accusing the Armed Forces of the Philippines, particularly the Eastern Mindanao Command, of protecting the interests of expanding large-scale agricultural projects and mining projects.

Current EastMinCom chief, Lieutenant General Aurelio Baladad, who was promoted by President Benigno Aquino III in August last year, commanded the 10th ID at the time, his troops accused of using a school and a church as their camp, and ransacking the home of community leader Mario Liban and confiscating his crops.

Later, the soldiers allegedly destroyed the crops of other farmers, harassed tribal chief Datu Herminio Suminggil, and imposed a 20-hour curfew, preventing farmers from tending to their crops. They also supposedly arrested a couple and forced them to admit that they were involved in the capture of a colonel by the New People’s Army.

Days later, the soldiers allegedly returned, lined up the villagers, and threatened to kill them in retaliation for an NPA ambush on their comrades. The soldiers also forced children to guide them on an operation.

These and similar abuses committed by Eastmincom troops have remained unpunished even as Baladad and three other senior officers who command or have led them have seen their stars continue to soar, are documented in a report, “The Path to Promotion in the Armed Forces Philippines: Vilification Campaigns, Human Rights Abuses, and Impunity,” by the US-based Ecumenical Advocacy Network on the Philippines.

The EANP bills itself as “a national ecumenical network of individuals, organizations, and groups, advocating restrictions to military aid appropriations to the Philippine government until there is compliance with national and international standards of human rights.”

And it argues that its report contains enough bases for the US to put the squeeze on the Philippines to respect human rights by cutting foreign military funding to the AFP as it did in 2008 in response to escalating extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and torture under then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

The EANP cites Section 7043 of the US’ 113th Congress Public Law 235, or the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015, which mandates that funds appropriated under the FMF “should only be made available” if the Secretary of State certifies and reports to the Committees on Appropriations that the Philippine government has complied with the following:

1. Investigating and prosecuting army personnel who were credibly alleged to have committed, aided, or abetted extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, and other human rights violations.
2. Strengthening government institutions working to eliminate such crimes.
3. Implementing a policy of promoting army personnel who demonstrated professionalism and respect for human rights.
4. Ensuring that the AFP and paramilitary groups under its control were not engaging in acts of intimidation or violence against journalists or human rights defenders.

The group says the State Department has not yet certified the AFP’s compliance with these conditions.

In fact, it noted, the four generals cited in its report had been promoted “very rapidly” over the past five years, with an average of only one and a half years before rising to the next rank, despite the abuses committed by troops under their command.

“Each has risen to leadership through service in units responsible for a campaign of extrajudicial killings, disappearances, and illegal detentions,” the EANP said.

The generals cited by the EANP are:

Major General Jorge Segovia

Major General Jorge Segovia headed EastMinCom early last year until his retirement in July. During his stint, said EANP, more than 10,000 people from 50 communities in four provinces were displaced.

Back then, he and his division commanders, Ricardo Visaya of the 4th ID and Baladad of the 10th, mounted operations targeting certain barangays accused of supporting the New People’s Army, with soldiers and auxiliary militias placing communities under military control and turning schools, barangay halls and other community centers into encampments.

The soldiers conducted a detailed household census and imposed curfews, allowing farmers only four hours to tend their crops and otherwise limiting civilian movement.

Community leaders became victims of extrajudicial killings, disappearances, and public vilification.

Segovia began his EastMincom stint at the helm of the 10th ID from 2010 to 2012.

But before this, he had already been implicated in rights abuses as commander of the 2nd ID in Tanay, which was responsible for the capture of the “Morong 43,” health workers nabbed in a raid on a farmhouse in Rizal province in February 2010 in circumstances that the Commission on Human Rights very recently, if very belatedly, violated their human rights.

Months after their arrest and alleged torture, a court ordered the health workers released an all charges against them dropped.

The AFP has not disputed the CHR’s findings but insists the Morong 43 were communist rebels undergoing explosives training when they were captured.

Major General Ricardo Visaya

President Aquino promoted Visaya to head the Southern Luzon Command in September last year.

Before this, he commanded the 4th ID from April 2013 to September 2014.

Units under Visaya’s command were accused of using harsh and illegal tactics against local communities accused of supporting the NPA, EANP said.

In August last year, Manobo tribal leader Datu Roger Alaki was allegedly killed by a member of a tribal militia allegedly organized by the 73rd Infantry Battalion in Agusan del Sur. EANP cited the Kalumbay Regional Lumad Organization as saying residents reported being targets of a vilification campaign conducted by the tribal militia, including threatening to attack them if they refused sign an agreement granting access to a mining company to operate in their community. This drove 30 families from their homes.

The same month, Higaonon leader Marcel Singaman Lambon was killed by a member of a militia unit in Bukidnon. He had been campaigning to end the expansion of an oil palm plantation into his community. Before his murder, soldiers would often visit him and publicly vilify him as an NPA supporter, the EANP said.

Incidentally, Visaya formerly commanded the 69th IB under then 7th ID commander Jovito Palparan. Now retired, Palparan is facing trial for the abduction and disappearance of University of the Philippipnes students Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeno on June 26, 2006, who were reportedly snatched by troops of the 69th IB. The unit was also implicated in the abduction of brothers Raymond and Reynaldo Manalo, who later escaped. Raymond Manalo is one of the key witnesses against Palparan, who activists call “The Butcher” for the string of human rights abuses in areas where he was assigned as military commander.

From February to September 2007, when Visaya was promoted to head the 7th ID’s civil military operations in Metro Manila, soldiers were stationed to barangays in the metropolis and were accused of conducting surveillance, intimidating civilians and actively campaigning against progressive political parties, EANP said.

Lieutenant General Aurelio Baladad

After his stint as 10th ID commander, Baladad was promoted by Aquino to head EastMinCom in August last year. Incidentally, he used to command the 202nd Infantry Brigade of the 2nd ID and was among the officers accused of the illegal arrest and torture of the Morong 43.

Despite this, he was promoted to brigadier general and named AFP deputy chief of staff for operations.

In July 2013, he was promoted to major general and commanded the 3rd ID in Capiz until he received his third star in 2014.

Major General Eduardo Año

In September last year, Major General Eduardo Año was named commander of the 10th ID, which operates in the Davao provinces and Compostela Valley, an area of operations with a long history of human rights abuses, the EANP said.

Troops of the 71st IB under the 10th ID have been tagged in the killing of peasant leader Luis Carbajosa in April this year. Human rights groups reported that Carbajosa, who had organized land reform beneficiaries and actively opposed the incursion of big banana plantations, was on an AFP “hit list” prior to his murder.

In 2007, Año was accused of commanding soldiers who abducted activist Jonas Burgos, son of press freedom icon Jose Burgos Jr. Jonas has not been found since.

The Burgos family filed a criminal complaint against Año and vainly attempted to block his promotion. The Department of Justice dropped the case for lack of evidence.